This just in

On Yale & Yale alumni.
Ico print Print | Ico email Email | Facebook | | RSS

Lawsuit lands SOM grads'
golf partnership in the rough

Clinton Grusd ’12MBA and Salman Syed ’12MBA were classmates and golf buddies at the Yale School of Management when they decided to go into business together. Their idea: Dolphin Golf, a device that would use GPS technology to "automatically track the location of the golfer’s ball and statistics of the golfer’s game," thereby providing "in-game advice and postgame analysis."

The idea won support from the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute's summer fellowship program two years ago. Grusd, an Ironman triathlon competitor (but a 24-handicap golfer) believed the device "would revolutionize the game of golf" by making it easy for statistic-obsessed athletes to crunch their numbers and improve their performance.

So says Grusd in a lawsuit accusing Syed of stealing the idea and starting a rival company. The suit, filed last week in New York State, contends that Syed told Grusd last year that he needed to leave Dolphin Golf for a paying job, then secretly teamed up with others—including two YEI-connected investors—to form Golfkick LLC, "a business that is identical to Dolphin Golf."

The suit accuses Syed, Golfkick, and other defendants—who include Elon Boms ’07MBA, a member of YEI's operating board and cofounder of a private equity firm, LaunchCapital; and Victoria Elenowitz, a founding member of the YEI Advisory Council and an angel investor—of breach of contract, misappropriation, and fraud.

The defendants have not yet filed a response. Grusd's suit cites a September 11 letter in which they reportedly said that "Grusd and Syed were not really partners, that Grusd did not really come up with the idea . . . and that Golfkick is different" from Dolphin Golf.

Grusd asks for a 50 percent share in Golfkick LLC.

Filed under golf, School of Management, Clinton Grusd, Salman Syed
The comment period has expired.